Web Serial Thread: Wildbow Fanclub

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hollylolly: Jun 5, 2009; Do you like superheroes? Check out my CYOA Mutants: Uprising

How about weird historical fiction? Try Vampires of the Caribbean

I think Wildbow has proven that he can write smart/clever characters and intrigue quite well. I am enjoying Peer, but to be honest I'm pretty sure I'll read whatever Wildbow writes next.

# ? Nov 26, 2013 19:14

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# ? May 13, 2024 20:47

packsmack: Jan 6, 2013

SerSpook posted:

To be honest I sat on the first chapter for like two months because it didn't seem very good. I kept reading on the strength of what others wrote, but it picked up pretty fast in my opinion.

I did the same thing. I wasn't really interested in reading about an outcast high schooler. Turns out I was wrong and that was, apparently, what I wanted to read.

# ? Nov 27, 2013 02:29

TOOT BOOT: May 25, 2010

Second chapter of Peer is out. Quite a bit better than the first chapter although Wildbow seems to have heavy reservations about continuing it.

# ? Nov 27, 2013 11:20

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Would it be too :filez:

to ask if there's a worm ebook available somewhere for offline reading? I read in the FAQ that, "I know there�s a few fanmade ebook versions circulating, I accept that it�ll happen, but I don�t want to help the process along," so I guess they exist somewhere.

Tunicate fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Nov 27, 2013

# ? Nov 27, 2013 18:39

Xemloth: Mar 27, 2011; Wait, what?

I need one too, got a friend interested in reading it but only if he can get a copy on his kindle.
Someone posted a way of copying the site and setting it up with a python script earlier in the thread but I couldn't figure out out

# ? Nov 27, 2013 18:50

Thom Yorke raps: Nov 2, 2004

Tunicate posted:

Would it be too to ask if there's a worm ebook available somewhere for offline reading? I read in the FAQ that, "I know there�s a few fanmade ebook versions circulating, I accept that it�ll happen, but I don�t want to help the process along," so I guess they exist somewhere.

I posted a script earlier that makes one, or you can pm me and I'll send it. But it is slightly messed up - the interludes are all at the end of the normal chapters, because it puts them in alphabetical order and I'm too lazy to fix it cause this is just for my reread. Feel free to fix up the script yourself though!

# ? Nov 27, 2013 18:51

thorf: Jun 26, 2013

Ranma posted:

I posted a script earlier that makes one, or you can pm me and I'll send it. But it is slightly messed up - the interludes are all at the end of the normal chapters, because it puts them in alphabetical order and I'm too lazy to fix it cause this is just for my reread. Feel free to fix up the script yourself though!

Yo. Oh, and I removed the need for httrack.

code:

# -*- coding: cp1252 -*-
from __future__ import print_function
import re
import os
import urllib



get = lambda url: urllib.urlopen(url).read()
toc = []
output = "output"



nextURL = "http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/1-1/"
#nextURL = "http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/agitation-3-1/"
try:
    os.mkdir(output)
except: pass

while True:
    html = get(nextURL)

    text = html
    text = re.sub('<!DOCTYPE html>.*<div class="entry-content">', "", text, 0, re.DOTALL);
    text = re.sub('<div id="jp-post-flair" .*', "", text, 0, re.DOTALL);

    #needed for last chapter
    text = re.sub('<!DOCTYPE html .*<div class="entry clear">', "", text, 0, re.DOTALL);
    text = re.sub('<div id="footer">.*', "", text, 0, re.DOTALL);

    #remove Last/Next chapter
    text = re.sub("""<a (title="(Last Chapter|Next Chapter|End)" )?href="([^<>]*)"> ?(Last Chapter|Next Chapter|End)</a>""", "", text)
    
    try:
        title = re.search("""<h1 class="entry-title">([^<>]*)</h1>""", html).group(1)
    except:
        title = re.search("""<h1>([^<>]*)</h1>""", html).group(1)
    title = re.sub("&nbsp;", " ", title).strip()
    print(title)
    
    filename = re.sub("�", "", title)
    #filename = filename.lower()
    #filename = re.sub("[^a-z0-9()#.½ ]", "-", filename)
    filename = filename + ".html"
    print(filename)
    
    path = os.path.join(output, filename)
    open(path, "w").write("""<html><body><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />%s</body></html>""" % text)
    toc.append("<a href=\"%s\">%s</a><br/>" % (filename, title))
    
    if "the-end" in nextURL:
        break
    nextURL = re.search("""<a (title="Next Chapter" )?href="([^<>]*)"> ?(Next Chapter|End)</a>""", html).group(2)

toc = "\n            ".join(toc)
open(os.path.join(output, "toc.html"), 'w').write("""
<html>
    <body>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
        <meta protect="stairs" />
        <h1>Table of Contents</h1>
        <p style="text-indent:0pt">
            %s
        </p>
    </body>
</html>""" % toc)

thorf fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Nov 29, 2013

# ? Nov 28, 2013 22:01

Firelizard: Oct 11, 2013

I read the final chapter of Teneral yesterday. This has been one crazy journey and a hell of an archive binge. Though I do feel sort of insane, considering my knee-jerk reaction upon waking up this morning and not having a new Worm chapter on my screen was to start all over again.

# ? Nov 30, 2013 02:02

Tollymain: Jul 9, 2010; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Well, Wildbow may be discarding the Fantasy idea, but they made sure to drop the tilt on us first. Goddamn :stare:

# ? Nov 30, 2013 13:44

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Just finished it up. I kinda felt the parts with the spaceworms were the weakest bits on the whole, but I'll need a bit more time to fully process my opinion on it.

# ? Nov 30, 2013 22:52

Skippy McPants: Mar 19, 2009

Tunicate posted:

Just finished it up. I kinda felt the parts with the spaceworms were the weakest bits on the whole, but I'll need a bit more time to fully process my opinion on it.

It was sort of a narrative necessity. In order for Taylor to defeat an ineffable eldritch abomination with psychological warfare we required at least some insight into their psychology for it to feel like a legitimate win.

That said those are also defiantly some of the weakest bits. Worm is at its best when the focus is on characters. Crazy space monsters and zany super hero battles are just stuff that happens between the really good bits. Not bad stuff, as such, but not really the major draw either.

# ? Nov 30, 2013 23:52

TOOT BOOT: May 25, 2010

Tollymain posted:

Well, Wildbow may be discarding the Fantasy idea, but they made sure to drop the tilt on us first. Goddamn

I am going to be in physical pain if there are two more stories even better than this one that don't even end up getting continued.

# ? Dec 1, 2013 02:45

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

The third chapter made the story less generic, at least. Caspar is still pretty unlikable, though. I'm still interested in Body, Face, and Pact.

# ? Dec 1, 2013 05:09

packsmack: Jan 6, 2013

If this is his weakest story then I'm hopeful for what else there he has in his back pocket.

It's interesting that he shook up the status quo so seriously in his fantasy story after only 4 chapters (he said this would have been the 4th if he actually used it). I guess he shook it up for Taylor when he had her do villain stuff in the first few arcs, but it wasn't until Leviathan that things really went crazy. It seems like in this story he had poo poo get real a littler faster.

# ? Dec 1, 2013 05:38

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

Skippy McPants posted:

That said those are also defiantly some of the weakest bits. Worm is at its best when the focus is on characters. Crazy space monsters and zany super hero battles are just stuff that happens between the really good bits. Not bad stuff, as such, but not really the major draw either.

Eh, I don't know that I agree, entirely. Some of the best parts of Worm are the bits where Taylor is scrabbling to come up with some crazy-rear end scheme to kill invincible death gods with butterflies. I mean, yes, the story's at its best when its focus is on the characters- that's true for all stories; the ones that treat their characters as cogs in a plot machine tend to come off as flat, empty and meaningless. I think it's easy to fall into a trap of thinking that the slow sections are superior to the big-wow fight scenes because, typically, that's where all the payoff is; that's where the characters decompress and process what's happened to them. But you need the big-wow fight scenes to come first, to stress and squeeze and break the characters, so that they have something to process later. They're two halves of the same coin; Teneal could not exist without Speck.

With that in mind, I think I'm actually pretty happy with the final four arcs- Extinction, Cockroaches, Venom and Speck. Teneal I don't like so much- it's too distant from the events of Speck, so it can't really do that processing very effectively, so it feels too disconnected from the rest of the narrative and fails to give Speck the significance it needs. Speck itself is fine, it does exactly what it needs to do. Maybe a little too anime, though by that point n the story I don't know if it could have been less so without feeling anticlimactic.

The big problem with Worm's final third is with what comes before that- everything between Behemoth's death and Jack turning Scion. The timeskip is a gaping loving wound in the narrative, and everything that borders on it is a mess. Too many fights scenes, not enough downtime to process it properly.

Somewhat relatedly, I've been thinking about the best way to carve Worm up into volumes; how does this strike people-

1. Gestation- Arcs 1 through 8; Taylor starting out as a cape, infiltrating the Undersiders, becoming progressively more disillusioned with Armsmaster and Protectorate, until finally Leviathan attacks and it all blows up in her face. This one's a gimme- it's what Wildbow outlined as the first book, and it's probably the most cleanly demarcated "superarc" in the entire story.
2. Infestation- Arcs 9 through 14; Taylor establishing herself as a crimeboss, fighting the other gangs in Leviathan's aftermath, trying to mend fences with the Undersiders- and then the Nine show up. I think, as far as Taylor's character arc goes, everything from Sentinel through to Cell belongs together, but that's faaar too much material for one volume. The fight with the Nine isn't quite as clean a breakpoint as Leviathan was, but it more or less marks the point where Taylor has successfully reintegrated with the gang, so it'll do.
3. Scourge- Arcs 15 through 19; Final defeat of the other gangs, Coil making his power play, Taylor supplanting Grue as leader of the Undersiders, and Noelle going full Echidna. Generally I'd try to avoid having two major climaxes in the one volume, and Kill Coil and Echidnapocalypse both qualify, but the one flows into the other pretty naturally, so I think a Little Bad/Big Bad setup would work well here. Positioning the Migration arc in this is tricky- if you have it come first, as a prologue, you're tipping your hand. If you keep it where it is, between the death of Coil and Nolle's rampage, then it breaks the flow of the narrative. What might work is if you broke the arc up and interleaved its chapters with the other arcs- a constant dripfeed of background.
4. Chrysalis- Arcs 20 through 22; Taylor as uncontested overlord of the city, being outed at the school, turning herself in and the death of Alexandria. This one is shorter than the others, but it's a lot more focused and cleaner too.

Like I said earlier, the next section is a mess; Drone and Crushed are okay, in and of themselves, but they don't really make a whole book. They might be long enough, technically speaking, but there's not enough of a buildup to the Behemoth fight. Folding it into the fourth volume I don't like- unlike Coil/Echidna, the two big climaxes here don't dovetail all that nicely, and I'm worried that it'd feel a little cramped. Rolling up 23 through 26 as a single unit doesn't work for me either- then you've got Behemoth right at the beginning of the book, more or less, and a great big gap in the middle. Adding material in the run up to Crushed is tricky, too: Taylor is just spinning her wheels in jail at this point, I have no idea where you could go with that. Scarab could be an entire book in its own, or two, with Taylor navigating the PRT, bonding with the Wards and laying the groundwork for the fight against Jack. If you do do two, then I guess Sting could serve as a climax to that. Otherwise, it'll probably have to go in as a prologue to the final book, which is a problem because Sting is pretty big in itself, and Scion going omnicidal is. great place to end a book.

8(?). Extinction- Arcs 27 through 30, plus Teneal; Scion on a rampage, Taylor going all-out to stop him. Despair and heroism at the end of the world. I think this one works pretty well.

# ? Dec 1, 2013 06:08

TOOT BOOT: May 25, 2010

Wildbow says he's going to redo the timeskip area when he's editing it.

# ? Dec 1, 2013 06:17

ConfusedUs: Feb 24, 2004; Bees?
You want fucking bees?
Here you go!
ROLL INITIATIVE!!

TOOT BOOT posted:

Wildbow says he's going to redo the timeskip area when he's editing it.

He needs to. It's by far the worst section of the story. There's no reason for it to exist, narratively.

# ? Dec 1, 2013 06:19

Skippy McPants: Mar 19, 2009

ConfusedUs posted:

He needs to. It's by far the worst section of the story. There's no reason for it to exist, narratively.

I think it can mostly be fixed by having time flow a bit more leading up to the skip. I always found is kinda crazy that only like... three weeks pass during the first twenty or so arcs.

# ? Dec 1, 2013 11:16

I Am Fowl: Mar 8, 2008; nononononono

TOOT BOOT posted:

Wildbow says he's going to redo the timeskip area when he's editing it.

This is what I'm most exciting about. That will get filled out and the content in general will be evened out and like Skippy said, giving it some parity with how at the beginning so much happens over like three weeks.

All that, if Wildbow follows through, will ensure that I buy when Worm goes to print.

# ? Dec 1, 2013 20:04

Zasze: Apr 29, 2009

Skippy McPants posted:

I think it can mostly be fixed by having time flow a bit more leading up to the skip. I always found is kinda crazy that only like... three weeks pass during the first twenty or so arcs.

In my head I had it as the outsiders being together for almost a year but then a character references it back and the first half of the story takes place over like 2 months :psyduck:

another thing about the timeskip is that taylor seems to be really hung up on the undersiders where as she was with golem and crew for like two years and seemed to hardly be attached to them.

# ? Dec 2, 2013 17:25

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

First chapter of Face is up: http://wildbow.wordpress.com/

This one actually went somewhere pretty fast. I guess what they're doing is like playing Mafia in real life?

I like the main character in this one. He kind of reminds me of Grue.

Zasze posted:

another thing about the timeskip is that taylor seems to be really hung up on the undersiders where as she was with golem and crew for like two years and seemed to hardly be attached to them.

I thought that was intentional. She became the sort of person who doesn't make friends as easily.

# ? Dec 3, 2013 23:56

Fellwenner: Oct 21, 2005; Don't make me kill you.

Which genre is Face supposed to be, again?

# ? Dec 4, 2013 00:29

berenzen: Jan 23, 2012

Thriller

# ? Dec 4, 2013 00:31

TOOT BOOT: May 25, 2010

I really hope this one isn't a retread of Saw or the Hunger Games.

# ? Dec 4, 2013 03:13

Tollymain: Jul 9, 2010; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

It gave me a few Hotline Miami vibes, what with the animal masks. There's basically no way they're not intended to kill each other until one remains a la Hunger Games, though. Kind of :geno:

on this one so far.

# ? Dec 4, 2013 04:37

ConfusedUs: Feb 24, 2004; Bees?
You want fucking bees?
Here you go!
ROLL INITIATIVE!!

Tollymain posted:

There's basically no way they're not intended to kill each other until one remains a la Hunger Games, though. Kind of on this one so far.

He's pretty good at turning these kind of expected twists on their head.

Come for the impending Battle Royale. Stay for the realization that it is the least hosed thing about the world.

# ? Dec 4, 2013 04:45

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

TOOT BOOT posted:

I really hope this one isn't a retread of Saw or the Hunger Games.

There are some somewhat unusual gimmicks here. One seems to be that they do the Battle Royale stuff every night and live their normal lives during the day. I can't think of any other Battle Royale clones with that element (although there's an obvious reason for that; it makes it too easy for the "contestants" to escape). The other is the masks, which mean they can't verify each other's identities (which strikes me as inspired by the forum game Mafia). Also, each "contestant" seems to have a group of "backers" who can intervene exactly three times (much like in Fate/Zero, I suppose).

From the comments of Wildbow's site, there seem to be a fair number of people who hate Battle Royale-type stories on general (moral?) principle ("They�re too contrived, too cruel and too ridiculously evil"). I'm not sure how these people got through the Slaughterhouse Nine recruitment storyline. :iiam:

Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Dec 4, 2013

# ? Dec 4, 2013 05:32

NecroMonster: Jan 4, 2009

Identity seems to be the central theme of Face, so I wouldn't expect it to work out very much like any of these other things at all.

# ? Dec 4, 2013 06:31

L-O-N: Sep 13, 2004; Pillbug

So is there an epub version of this? Trying to read a novel on the computer monitor is not fun.

# ? Dec 4, 2013 06:49

Fellwenner: Oct 21, 2005; Don't make me kill you.

Not yet, it's in the process of being edited by Wildbow and afterwards will be available. If you've got WiFi you could just read it on your phone or ereader just as easily.

# ? Dec 4, 2013 08:43

Tollymain: Jul 9, 2010; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

The OP should probably be edited with that information, what with how many times that question has been asked. Also, I suggest the thread be renamed The Book Barn > Internet Serials: Wildbow Fanclub :v:

# ? Dec 4, 2013 11:03

withak: Jan 15, 2003; Fun Shoe

L-O-N posted:

So is there an epub version of this? Trying to read a novel on the computer monitor is not fun.

Easiest way to read it is through Instapaper or similar.

# ? Dec 4, 2013 15:26

Blasphemeral: Jul 26, 2012; Three mongrel men in exchange for a party member? I found that one in the Faustian Bargain Bin.

Chapter 1 of Face was definately better than Chapter 1 of Peer. I couldn't even get through that one.

Is there any reason, I wonder, why he isn't dropping us right into an action sequence? What's that called again? There's a latin term for it and it's used in narrative constantly, especially on TV.

# ? Dec 4, 2013 18:38

Tollymain: Jul 9, 2010; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

In media res?

# ? Dec 4, 2013 18:46

Blasphemeral: Jul 26, 2012; Three mongrel men in exchange for a party member? I found that one in the Faustian Bargain Bin.

Tollymain posted:

In media res?

Thanks, that's the one!

Just drop us into something crazy, have the hero seemingly resolve it, only to show us it's much worse than we thought because <in-universe reason>. It'd be much better than the slow buildups he's tried so far. We just experienced two years of a super-wily teenager who can murder intergalactic pan-dimensional beings through her clever application of a simple powerset, Wildbow, we don't want to start over trying to get to know some courtly paige with nothing on the line and no reason to be interested. We know you can put on the heat-- do it, already!

# ? Dec 4, 2013 20:22

Grundulum: Feb 28, 2006

Blasphemeral posted:

Chapter 1 of Face was definately better than Chapter 1 of Peer. I couldn't even get through that one.

Is there any reason, I wonder, why he isn't dropping us right into an action sequence? What's that called again? There's a latin term for it and it's used in narrative constantly, especially on TV.

I'm really disappointed that Peer isn't going anywhere. I like Face's first chapter just as much as Peer, but there were definitely wheels-within-wheels plots going on in Peer that now we're never going to get to see

As to your first question, in medias res leads to a lot of telling rather than showing. Think of all the things that happened in the first chapter: newly orphaned long-lost siblings, strained relationship with them, Marlene's tantrum and destruction, friendly-with-benefits neighbor who may or may not be associated with the less-than-savory side job, omnipresence of technology, and so on. Now imagine that in addition to describing the fallout from a cliffhanger in the first chapter (only you, Wildbow :allears:

), we have to learn everything from the that chapter in order to understand the actions the characters are taking in the second one. There would almost have to be a lot of paragraphs dedicated to explaining the needed background.

# ? Dec 4, 2013 20:48

Blasphemeral: Jul 26, 2012; Three mongrel men in exchange for a party member? I found that one in the Faustian Bargain Bin.

Grundulum posted:

I'm really disappointed that Peer isn't going anywhere. I like Face's first chapter just as much as Peer, but there were definitely wheels-within-wheels plots going on in Peer that now we're never going to get to see

As to your first question, in medias res leads to a lot of telling rather than showing. Think of all the things that happened in the first chapter: newly orphaned long-lost siblings, strained relationship with them, Marlene's tantrum and destruction, friendly-with-benefits neighbor who may or may not be associated with the less-than-savory side job, omnipresence of technology, and so on. Now imagine that in addition to describing the fallout from a cliffhanger in the first chapter (only you, Wildbow ), we have to learn everything from the that chapter in order to understand the actions the characters are taking in the second one. There would almost have to be a lot of paragraphs dedicated to explaining the needed background.

Nothing says it had to be that cliffhanger. He could have started it earlier, on whatever the last less-than-legal job the guy did and still included the kids. Or done a flash-back after the fact. A flashback handles the show-not-tell issue you brought up nicely, and we know he's good at those, too.

I enjoyed Face 1.1 despite this lack of an exciting and engaging event because the guy has some interesting... neuroses? Internal monologue? I'm not sure. Whatever it is, it kept me curious. But Peer's "here's a dirt farmer, love him" was not at all good with me, and as far as my own IRL reading group goes, was not generally well receieved by others. I understand that Lowly Court Page Number 12 is a common trope in fantasy, thanks to groggy D&D DMs who insist on starting characters at level 1, but seriously, not good material for a followup to such a blowout hit as his last story.

# ? Dec 4, 2013 21:25

Tollymain: Jul 9, 2010; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Blasphemeral posted:

I enjoyed Face 1.1 despite this lack of an exciting and engaging event because the guy has some interesting... neuroses? Internal monologue? I'm not sure. Whatever it is, it kept me curious. But Peer's "here's a dirt farmer, love him" was not at all good with me, and as far as my own IRL reading group goes, was not generally well receieved by others. I understand that Lowly Court Page Number 12 is a common trope in fantasy, thanks to groggy D&D DMs who insist on starting characters at level 1, but seriously, not good material for a followup to such a blowout hit as his last story.

Eh, being the only son of the government's resident boogeyman isn't in the "dirt farmer" or "lowly court page #x" range in my opinion.

# ? Dec 4, 2013 21:30

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Tollymain posted:

In media res?

Actually, it's "in medias res." Your error is a strangely common one, perhaps because "media" is a word in English and "medias" isn't. :eng101:

# ? Dec 6, 2013 00:25

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# ? May 13, 2024 20:47

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Face 2 is up. It seems likely that the "beasts" will be killing the "sponsors" as well as each other. Also, Heart's attempt to explain her goals makes her group seem sort of like Cauldron, but even more incompetent.

# ? Dec 7, 2013 09:04

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Web Serial Thread: Wildbow Fanclub

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